Making the best and most of every moment in the kitchen — and every dollar spent — this upbeat, can-do guide to cooking and planning delicious meals won’t break the bank or bore your family’s taste buds.
Besides a slew of my favorite recipes from home and my restaurant, The Rock, I’m sharing lots of kitchen know-how that I’ve picked up throughout 15 years of making comfort food favorites on a grand scale—ideas that I use every day to make cooking for my family simpler and more efficient, and at the same time more varied and exciting.
In Dollars to Donuts, I show that you can have your steak and eat it, too, through 150 recipes for tasty dishes — like Paella with Spicy Sausage and Pot-Roasted Chicken with Saffron, Chickpeas, and Lemon, and decadent desserts like Chocolate-Chip Oatmeal Pie.
Every recipe is annotated with cost per serving so cooks can mix and match a week’s worth of stress-free meals on any budget. As a busy working mom who has learned to stretch her food dollars, I offer my tips and strategies for shopping, freezing, making meals ahead, and menu planning with old-fashioned, down-home sensibility.
Whether it’s The Doorbell Dash (quick entertaining when unexpected company drops by), The Big Bang Relay (featuring food to cook once and eat twice or more), Covering Your Bases (4 sauces, 16 ways to use them), or Eating Green (and saving it, too!), you’ll learn how to trump any food challenge deliciously. More than a budget-friendly cookbook, Dollars to Donuts is a refreshing and upbeat resource for creating wholesome, great-tasting food without sacrificing flavor, convenience, or your bank account.
Even though it’s harder than ever to make ends meet, when you’re clever and resourceful in the kitchen, it’s not all that difficult to cook great meals for your family without sacrificing the foods you all love. By following my tried-and-true cooking and saving strategies and mixing and matching recipes to create a food plan that fits your family’s preferences and budget, I promise you that you’ll eat better, even if you’re feeling the pinch. My mom always said to “get what you want with what you’ve got.” It’s a simple philosophy that I follow, and dollars to donuts, I know it’ll work for you, too.
